Zephaniahchapter 1
18 verses · Zephaniah · 640 to 622 BC · The Twelve
The great Day of the LORD is near—near and coming quickly. Listen, the Day of the LORD! Then the cry of the mighty will be bitter.
Introduction
Zephaniah, The Twelve, Zephaniah Overview.
Zephaniah spoke in Jerusalem while Josiah was still a young king, and the book traces the prophet's own line back four generations to a Hezekiah. The city he addressed had lived through half a century of Manasseh's altars and had learned to treat God as absent. This chapter is a prophetic oracle, spoken for most of its length in the LORD's own voice. It narrows from the whole earth to Judah, and then to named gates, quarters and trades inside the capital. Listen for the word day and count how often it returns. Listen also for the men who have decided that God does nothing at all.
Context
- Who
- Judeans who had grown up under two generations of state-sponsored idolatry
- What
- An oracle announcing the Day of the LORD against Judah and Jerusalem, naming the idolaters, the royal court and the complacent men of the city.
- Where
- Jerusalem, from the temple and the rooftops where the stars were worshiped to the Fish Gate, the Second District and the market quarter called the Hollow.
- When
- In the days of Josiah king of Judah, who reigned from about 640 to 609 BC, and most likely before his reform of 622 BC, since the Baal worship named here still stood.
- Why
- To warn a city that mixed the worship of the LORD with other gods that judgment was near and that wealth would buy no escape from it.
Historical context
Zephaniah traces his own family back four generations to a Hezekiah, which is unusual, most prophets name only a father. If that is King Hezekiah, as many hold, the man announcing the fall of Jerusalem was speaking from inside the royal family.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The idolatry described is the residue of Manasseh's fifty-five-year reign, the longest in Judah's history and the worst. The kemarim named here are a particular kind of idolatrous priest, a word used only for the servants of foreign shrines. Worshipping the host of heaven on the rooftops was a Mesopotamian import that came in with Assyrian influence, and flat roofs made the whole city an observatory.
The double-minded are named exactly: those who swear by the LORD and also swear by Milcom, the god of Ammon. This is not apostasy but hedging, keeping both accounts open, which Zephaniah treats as worse than either.
The geography of the alarm is a route through the city. The Fish Gate was in the north wall where the coastal traders came in; the Second Quarter, or Mishneh, was the expanded western district that had filled with refugees after the north fell; and the Maktesh, meaning the mortar, the hollow of a stone bowl, was a dip in the ground where the merchants and silver weighers worked. Zephaniah is tracking an invasion through the streets by name. Then he adds the wine image: men thickening on their lees, like wine left too long on its sediment until it goes heavy and sluggish and can no longer be poured clear.
Significance
The chapter's opening is a reversal of creation, man and beast, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, swept away. Hearers who knew the Genesis order would have heard the list running backwards.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The men in the Maktesh were saying in their hearts that the LORD will not do good, nor will he do harm. That is the real target: not people who denied God but people who had decided he was inert. Zephaniah answers with a day of the LORD described as bitter, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities, and their silver and gold will not be able to deliver them.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this lane, printed no weekly portion and no Haftarah from this chapter, and no festival reading for the book. That table carries the Haftarah of each of the fifty-four weekly portions and the books read whole at the feasts, and it carries nothing for the special Sabbaths or the fast days. This card therefore names no public reading of the chapter and leaves that question to a source that holds those readings.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the second verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tazria 13:2. Under the fifth verse it carries Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 26.
How it is read
One commentator on this chapter carries English in the corpus. Rashi is quoted from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY, and every quotation of it is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern. His lemmas, which carry the verse in the Judaica Press wording, are never quoted here.
Rashi reads the opening sweep of judgment as a judgment on idolatry. The stumbling blocks of the third verse "are the pagan deities". The remnant of Baal in the fourth verse is cut off "that there shall be no remnant of its remembrance". The two kinds of priests he glosses as "Their worshippers with their priests" (Rashi on Zephaniah 1:3:1, 1:4:1 and 1:4:2).
At the fifth verse he explains the double oath. The people swear by the Lord and by their king, and Rashi takes the king to be their idol. "They make the pagan deity the main one, saying, “If you do not believe the oath by God, I swear to you by the pagan deity.”" (Rashi on Zephaniah 1:5:1).
Rashi reads the sacrifice of the seventh verse as war. He glosses the invited guests in one line: "He prepared His armies for the appointed day". The foreign clothing of the eighth verse he reads as "Ornaments of the idols" (Rashi on Zephaniah 1:7:1 and 1:8:1).
Rashi reads the leaping over the threshold through the Aramaic Targum of Jonathan. Jonathan renders the one who leaps as one "who follows the customs of the Philistines, who would not step on the threshold of Dagon". He points to the priests of Dagon in 1 Samuel 5:5 (Rashi on Zephaniah 1:9:1). The places of the tenth and eleventh verses he locates in the city. The fish gate is "a gate in Jerusalem called by that name", and Maktesh is "The Kidron Valley, which is as deep as a mortar". The next note gives a second reading of the fish gate, and both stand: "This is Acre, situated in the bosom of the sea, where many fish are caught" (Rashi on Zephaniah 1:10:1 and 1:11:1).
The search of Jerusalem with lamps in the twelfth verse Rashi reads as strict judgment: "I will judge their iniquities strictly". The men on whom distress comes in the seventeenth verse he reads as Israel, "who is called “man.”" (Rashi on Zephaniah 1:12:1 and 1:17:1).
Sefaria holds no English version of the other entries of the corpus on this chapter. They are cited by ref alone: Ibn Ezra at 1:1:1, 1:2:1, 1:3:1, 1:5:1, 1:6:1, 1:13:1, 1:16:1 and 1:18:1, and Radak at 1:1:1 and 1:6:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse it holds Megillah 15a:3 and Seder Olam Rabbah 20:1. On the second verse it holds Avodah Zarah 55a:1, Bereshit Rabbah 28:6, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Avodah Zarah 4:2 and Ein Yaakov, Avodah Zarah 4:2. It holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Bachodesh 6:21, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tazria 13:2 and Midrash Tehillim 92:1 there as well. On the third verse it holds Kohelet Rabbah 1:2:1, Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Temurah 1:5, Sifrei Devarim 306:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 47:2. On the fourth verse it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 15:12. On the fifth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 26, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 22, Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 30:15:8 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 13:4. It holds Pesikta DeRav Kahana 13:8 and Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 999:1 there as well.
On the eighth verse it holds Pesikta Rabbati 42:1. On the ninth verse it holds Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah 3:2:4 and Midrash Shmuel 11:5. On the twelfth verse it holds Ein Yaakov, Pesakhim 1:12, Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim 1:1:4, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 12:17 and Midrash Aggadah, Deuteronomy 3:23:8. It holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 3:40:1, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 31:35:3 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 12:20:43 there as well. On the fifteenth verse it holds Avodah Zarah 18b:14, Avodah Zarah 18b:15, Bava Batra 10a:16 and Bava Batra 10b:10. It holds Bava Batra 116a:4, Bava Batra 141a:2 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 1:20 there as well. On the seventeenth verse it holds Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Prayer of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 7 and Shemot Rabbah 42:4. On the eighteenth verse it holds Midrash Tehillim 46:1. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Zephaniah 1:2:1 to 1:17:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Zephaniah 1:1:1, 1:2:1, 1:3:1, 1:5:1, 1:6:1, 1:13:1, 1:16:1 and 1:18:1, cited by ref only; Sefaria holds no English version; Radak, Radak on Zephaniah 1:1:1 and 1:6:1, cited by ref only; Sefaria holds no English version; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/zephaniah/1.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, printing no portion and no Haftarah for this chapter and no festival reading for this book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
I will utterly sweep everything from off the land
the son of Hezekiah: Zephaniah traces his line back four generations to "the son of Hezekiah," whom Keil and Pusey identify with the king. The descent makes the prophet royal, with standing to charge the princes of 1:8. He prophesies "in the days of Josiah," before the reforms of 622 BC took full effect.
Zephaniah 1:1
“The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah - It seems likely that more forefathers of the prophet are named than is the wont of Holy Scripture, because the last so named was some one remarkable.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Zephaniah 1:1
“Zephaniah - He is thought to have been the great-grandson of king Hezekiah. In the days of Josiah - So he was cotemporary with Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and foretells what Jeremiah and Ezekiel did.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Zephaniah 1:2-3
The sweep runs through "man and beast," "the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea," the order of Genesis 1 in reverse. The words are those of judgment on the whole world, and verse 4 then turns the sentence on Judah and Jerusalem.
Zephaniah 1:2
“I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. That is, from the land of Judah, by means of the Chaldeans or Babylonians: this is a general denunciation of the judgments of God, the particulars follow: or, "in gathering I will gather"; all good things out of the land; all the necessaries of life, and blessings of Providence; all that is for the sustenance and pleasure of man, as well as all creatures, by death or captivity; and so the land should be entirely stripped, and left naked and bare.”
the idols with their wicked worshipers: Verse 3 names the idols beside the people who served them, so the objects of false worship share their worshipers' end. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the idols as the stumbling blocks that made Judah fall, citing Ezekiel 14:3 and 4. Both go down together.
Zephaniah 1:3
“Enumeration in detail of the "all things" (Zep 1:2; compare Jer 9:10; Ho 4:3). the stumbling-blocks--idols which cause Judah to offend or stumble (Eze 14:3, 4, 7). with the wicked--The idols and their worshippers shall be involved in a common destruction.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Zephaniah 1:4-6
every remnant of Baal: The list names Baal, "the idolatrous and pagan priests," "the host of heaven" worshiped on the rooftops, and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. These cults were left from Manasseh's reign, and verse 5 charges those who "swear by the LORD but also swear by Milcom," a worship divided.
Zephaniah 1:4
“I will cut off the remnant of Baal - I think he refers here, partly at least, to the reformation which Josiah was to bring about. See the account, 2Ki 23:5 (note). The Chemarims - The black-robed priests of different idols. See the note on 2Ki 23:6. These were put down by Josiah.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
bow on the rooftops: Worship of the host of heaven took place on flat roofs, open to the sky. Albert Barnes links it to the rooftop altars of Ahaz that Josiah tore down in 2 Kings 23:12. John Wesley calls the double oath a mixed worship.
Zephaniah 1:5
“House-tops - On the flat roofs of their houses. And that swear - That mixt idol-worship, and the worship of the true God; that devote themselves to God, and Baal, or Malchim, that is, Moloch.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
those who turn back from following the LORD: Verse 6 adds two groups to the idolaters of verses 4 and 5. The first once followed the LORD and turned away, and the second never sought Him or asked for His guidance. Both stand under one sentence.
Zephaniah 1:6
“Them that are turned back - Who have forsaken the true God, and become idolaters. Nor inquired for him - Have not desired to know his will.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Zephaniah 1:6
“7 Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord G OD : for the day of the L ORD is at hand: for the L ORD hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his guests. 8 And it shall come to pass in the day of the L ORD 's sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Searching Jerusalem with lamps for the men settled on their lees
the LORD has prepared a sacrifice: The command "Be silent in the presence of the Lord GOD" calls for silence before a feast of judgment. The LORD "has prepared a sacrifice" and "consecrated His guests," so He is the host, Judah the offering and the invading army the guests. Habakkuk 2:20 uses the same call.
Zephaniah 1:7
“The day of the Lord will come. Men have their day now, when they take a liberty to do what they please; but God's day is at hand; it is here called his sacrifice, a sacrifice of his preparing, for the punishing of presumptuous sinners is a sacrifice to the justice of God, some reparation to his injured honour.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Zephaniah 1:7
“The day - A day of vengeance from the Lord. A sacrifice - The wicked Jews, whom he will sacrifice by the sword. His guests - summoned the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, to eat the flesh, and drink the blood.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Zephaniah 1:8-9
dressed in foreign apparel: The LORD will punish "the princes, the sons of the king, and all who are dressed in foreign apparel." John Gill reads those "who leap over the threshold" against 1 Samuel 5:5, where the priests of Dagon would not tread on the threshold.
Zephaniah 1:8
“I will punish the princes, and the king’s children - After the death of Josiah the kingdom of Judah saw no prosperity, and every reign terminated miserably; until at last King Zedekiah and the king’s children were cruelly massacred at Riblah, when Nebuchadnezzar had taken Jerusalem. Strange apparel - I really think this refers more to their embracing idolatrous customs and heathen usages, than to their changing their dress. They acquired new habits, as we would say; customs, that they used as they did their clothing - at all times, and in every thing.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Zephaniah 1:8
“The princes - The great ones, who dreamed of shifting better than others, but fell with the first, 2 Kings xxv, 19-21. Children - Sons and grand-children, Josiah: Jehoahaz died a captive in Egypt, 2 Kings xxiii, 34, Jehoakim died in Babylon, and was buried with the burial of an ass, Jer. xxii, 18, 19, Jeconiah died a captive: and Zedekiah and his children, fared still worse.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Zephaniah 1:8
“GROTIUS refers the "strange apparel" to garments forbidden by the law, for example, men's garments worn by women, and vice versa, a heathen usage in the worship of Mars and Venus (De 22:5).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
leap over the threshold: Readers divide over the leaping at the threshold. John Gill connects it with the priests of Dagon, who stepped over the threshold where their idol fell in 1 Samuel 5:5. Albert Barnes rejects that link and takes the violence and deceit in a master's house as the plain charge.
Zephaniah 1:9
“I will punish all those that leap on the threshold - Neither language nor history nor context allow this to be understood of the idolatrous custom of Ashdod, not to tread on the threshold of the temple of Dagon. It had indeed been a strange infatuation of idolatry, that God’s people should adopt an act of superstitious reverence for an idol in the very instance in which its nothingness and the power of the true God had been shown. Nothing is indeed too brutish for one who chooses an idol for the true God, preferring Satan to the good God.”
Zephaniah 1:10-11
The cry moves across Jerusalem's own map, from "the Fish Gate" to "the Second District," so the invasion is heard advancing through the city. The name "the Hollow" translates Maktesh, a mortar for grinding, which named the merchants' quarter, and the city's mortar is itself about to be pounded.
Zephaniah 1:10
“A cry from the fish-gate - This gate, which is mentioned Neh 3:3, was opposite to Joppa; and perhaps the way in which the news came of the irruption of the Chaldean army, the great crashing from the hills. The second - Or second city, may here mean a part of Jerusalem, mentioned 2Ki 22:14; 2Ch 34:22.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Zephaniah 1:10
“The noise - The great out-cry and lamentation. The fish gate - At which gate the Babylonians first entered into the city. The second - This gate was in the second wall of Jerusalem, which on that side was fortified with three walls.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Zephaniah 1:10
“It belonged to the city of David ( 2 Chron. xxxiii. 3 ); perhaps the same with that which is called the first gate ( Zech. xiv. 10 ), and, if so, it will explain what follows here, And a howling from the second, that is, the second gate, which was next to that fish-gate.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Wail, O dwellers of the Hollow: The Hollow translates the Hebrew Maktesh, a mortar for grinding grain. John Gill takes it as a low street of Jerusalem shaped like a bowl, where merchants weigh out silver. Albert Barnes, quoting Jerome, says the dwellers of the Hollow would be pounded as a pestle pounds grain.
Zephaniah 1:11
“Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh,.... The name of a street in Jerusalem, as Aben Ezra; perhaps it lay low in the hollow of the city, and in the form of a mortar, from whence it might have its name, as the word (q) signifies; which is used both for a hollow place and for a mortar, Jdg 15:19 unless it might be so called from such persons dwelling in it, that used mortars for spice, and other things.”
1 more voice on this verse
Zephaniah 1:11
“Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh - Literally, “Mortar” , “in which,” Jerome says, “corn is pounded; a hollow vessel, and fit for the use of medical men, in which properly ptisans are wont to be beaten (or made). Striking is it, that Scripture saith not, ‘who dwell in the valley or in the alley,’ but who “dwell in the mortar,” because as corn, when the pestle striketh, is bruised, so the army of the enemy shall rush down upon you” (Jerome).”
Zephaniah 1:12-13
search Jerusalem with lamps: The LORD will "search Jerusalem with lamps." The Hebrew behind "the men settled in complacency" pictures wine left to thicken on its dregs, men who say the LORD "will do nothing." The losses of verse 13 repeat the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28 and the words of Amos 5:11.
Zephaniah 1:12
“I will search Jerusalem with candles - I will make a universal and thorough search. That are settled on their lees - Those who are careless, satisfied with the goods of this life; who trust in their riches, and are completely irreligious; who, while they acknowledge that there is a God, think, like the Aristotelians, that he is so supremely happy in the contemplation of his own excellences, that he feels it beneath his dignity to concern himself with the affairs of mortals.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Zephaniah 1:12
“This intimates that they conceal themselves, as being either ashamed of the sin or afraid of the punishment of it; when the judgments of God are abroad they hope to escape by absconding and getting out of the way, but God will search Jerusalem, as search is made for a malefactor in disguise, that is harboured by his accomplices.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
They will build houses but not inhabit them: The losses of verse 13 repeat the curses of Deuteronomy 28:30 and 39, where houses and vineyards go to others. Amos 5:11 uses the same words against Israel. Albert Barnes reads the verse as the answer of events to men who said God does nothing.
Zephaniah 1:13
“Therefore their goods - Literally, “And their strength.” It is the simple sequel in God’s Providence. It is a continued narrative. God will visit those who say, that God does not interfere in man’s affairs, and, it shall be seen Jer 44:28 whose words shall stand, God’s or their’s. All which God had threatened in the law shall be fulfilled. God, in the fulfillment of the punishment, which He had foretold in the law Lev 26:32-33; Deut. 28, would vindicate not only His present Providence, but His continual government of His own world.”
2 more voices on this verse
Zephaniah 1:13
“That is enough to make the sinners in Zion tremble--that it is the day of the Lord, the day in which he will manifest himself by taking vengeance on them. It is the great day of the Lord, a specimen of the day of judgment, a kind of doom's-day, as the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans is represented to be in our Saviour's prediction concerning it, Matt. xxiv.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Zephaniah 1:13
“Therefore their goods shall become a booty, &c.--Fulfilling the prophecy in De 28:30, 39 (compare Am 5:11).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
A day of wrath, trouble, trumpet, and alarm
Zephaniah 1:14-16
"The great Day of the LORD is near," "near and coming quickly," and "the cry of the mighty will be bitter." Verse 15 piles near synonyms "wrath," "trouble and distress," "darkness and gloom," and the list supplied much of the vocabulary of the hymn Dies Irae.
Zephaniah 1:14
“The great day of the Lord is near - It commenced with the death of the good king Josiah, who was slain by Pharaoh-necho at Megiddo, and continued to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
That day will be a day of wrath: Verse 15 piles up names for the day in near synonyms. Albert Barnes reads trouble and distress as a pressure that hems the sinner in on every side with no way out. The Latin hymn Dies Irae takes its opening words from this verse.
Zephaniah 1:15
“A day of wrath - In which all the wrath of Almighty God, which evil angels and evil men have treasured to them for that day, shall be poured out: “the” day of wrath, because then they shall be brought face to face before the presence of God, but thenceforth they shall be cast out of it forever.”
1 more voice on this verse
Zephaniah 1:15
“It will be a day of trouble and distress to the sinners; they shall be in pain, and shall see no ways of easing or helping themselves. The miseries of the damned are summed up (perhaps with reference to this) in the indignation and wrath of God, which are the cause, and the tribulation and anguish of the sinner's soul, which are the effect, Rom. ii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
a day of horn blast and battle cry: The horn was the ram's horn blown to call Israel to worship and to war. Albert Barnes observes that a people who ignored its call to holy service would now hear it as a battle alarm. The fortified cities and corner towers were the defenses Judah trusted.
Zephaniah 1:17-18
walk like the blind: They "will walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the LORD," a people in panic before any weapon strikes. Blood "poured out like dust" and flesh "like dung" picture the dead left unburied. "His jealousy" makes "a sudden end," which Babylon soon carried out.
Zephaniah 1:17
“I will bring distress upon men - I will hem them in, in anguish on all sides. God Himself shall meet them with His terrors, wherever they turn. “I will hem them in, that they may find it so” . That they shall walk like blind men - Utterly bereft of counsel, seeing no more than the blind which way to turn, grasping blindly and franticly at anything, and going on headlong to their own destruction.”
Neither their silver nor their gold: Silver and gold, the trade of the Hollow in verse 11, cannot buy a way out of this day. Matthew Henry reads the sudden end as God's justice making quick and thorough work once the measure of sin is full. The fire of His jealousy ends the chapter.
Zephaniah 1:18
“Note, Sometimes the judgments of God make riddance, even utter riddance, with sinful nations, a speedy riddance; their destruction is effected, is completed, in a little time. Let not sinners be laid asleep by the patience of God, for when the measure of their iniquity is full his justice will both overtake and overcome, will make quick work and thorough work.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.